


The Waystone

by tarhiel



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: Alinor, Altmeri headcanons, Don't Try This At Home, Gen, Magitech, Summerset Isles, The Crystal Tower, childhood near death experiences, sad elves sticking their fingers in magical electrical sockets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 02:01:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5564653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarhiel/pseuds/tarhiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Childhood flashback one-shot story about Iriel, the protagonist of my Morrowind fic, <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4925194">How to Disappear Completely</a>.</p><p>Inspired by some of the <a href="http://ladynerevar.tumblr.com/post/113912671210/datamined-alinor-dialog">Alinor lorestuff</a> datamined out of unreleased TES Online content by ladynerevar on tumblr, such as:</p><p>“Waystones are actually crafted crystal vials that are completely sealed. Inside is a swirling of magic that always points to the Crystal Tower in Summerset. The Altmer create them so that they can navigate regardless of the weather or time of day.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Waystone

“But why does it have to be my house? I’ll get in more trouble than you, you know!” Firionwe was whispering, although in truth, she wasn’t sure what they were doing wrong. It just felt inherently forbidden, sneaking onto the roof of her Kinhouse after sunset, so that Iriel could show her something. Something she hadn’t even seen yet, because he was already wrapped around it, sitting hunched against the white-carved balustrade, cradling his treasure between knees and body, arms blocking her view.  
  
“No you won’t.” He finally tore his gaze away from it to look at her, amber eyes barely visible between long tendrils of hair. “Not _more_ trouble than me. And it can’t be my house, because I need a Varline connection.”  
  
“It’s magical?” If Firi sounded surprised, it was not because magical items were anything particularly exciting to her. In her family, they were part and parcel of daily routine. What surprised her was that Iriel had one. For all that he was fascinated by magic, he was a nine-year-old fisherman’s son - the lower end of merchant class. His family didn’t have access to the things she did. She was only a single caste-level above him, but in Lillandril, that meant you belonged to a Kinhold, with all the rights and privileges that involved.  
  
Iriel sat up and pushed his hair out of his eyes. “It’s broken,” he said. “I want to try something.”  
  
There was something in his voice she didn’t like. Iriel had never been a rebellious child. As best friends, their activities had always remained within the strict bounds of parental authority. But as he had dragged her up the circular staircase to the small cupola on the roof of the highest tower, he had radiated an air of suppressed hysteria. She usually only saw that when he was frozen in fear, trying to hide behind her. Now, he was scared, but doing it anyway, and despite telling herself that Iriel was frightened of everything, however minor, she still found it alarming. And now, high above the city, the Varlines shimmering through the air just a few feet above, his eyes were filled with manic energy, as when he found a particularly exciting passage in a book he wanted to show her. “What is it?” she asked.  
  
“A waystone. My Pa uses it in his boat. He brought it home to have it mended. I… borrowed it.”  
  
“A _waystone?_ That’s all?” She was frustrated by the anticlimax. “You brought me up here, and made all this fuss over a waystone? A _broken_ waystone?” She slumped to the floor, leaning against him until one of her dark braids slipped into his lap, blocking his view of the stone. He shook her off, irritably.  
  
“You know about them? I thought…” He sounded deflated, his precious artifact scorned. She leaned into her advantage. “Oh, yes. We use them all time, when we travel. They’re just navigation tools, that’s all. Nothing even _slightly_ exciting, I’m afraid.” She patted his shoulder, condescendingly. “Shall we go back downstairs, and work on your herbalism project?”  
  
“But… Pa said they show you where the Crystal Tower is.”  
  
“So what if they do?”  
  
He stared at her, incredulous. “Don’t you want to know where it is? Don’t you want to see it?”  
  
She shrugged. “I dunno. It’s just a tower.”  
  
“It is _not_ just a tower.” He stood up, clutching the waystone to his chest. “You can say that because you’ve always known you could go there, if you ever wanted to. I can’t rely on that.” He pointed vaguely outwards, at the dark horizon. “They say that you can only see it if you’re destined to go there. If it wants you to,  if… if you’re _worthy_. Ma says I can only go there if I work harder than anyone else, and prove I’m better than everyone, but I… I don’t know. What if the _Tower_ thinks I’m not worthy? I need to know. I need to know if it’s all worth it, or if I’m wasting my time with… with stupid herbalism projects, and… and…”  
  
Firionwe laughed. “Irie, stop worrying. Everything’s going to be fine. Your mother and my mother have planned everything out. You’ll go to the Crystal Tower and become a great mage, I’ll go to the Umbral Tower and train to be an Archivist. And in forty years or so, when we’ve learned all we need to, we’ll be married, and I’ll raise you up to my caste. Maybe we won’t even need to file for a Special Blood Exception, by then. Maybe your mother and her Egalitarian Crusaders of Lillandril will have succeeded, and it won’t even be a problem any more.”  
  
Iriel was staring down at the dull, lifeless crystal in his hands. "You know I want all that too, Firi, I just… need to know. I need to see it.”  
  
“What are you going to do, then?”  
  
Iriel leaned over the edge of the balustrade, looking up at the Varla Stone, set into the apex of the cupola. Against the dark sky, he could see tiny streams of magicka, curdling out of the Varline into the Stone, after which it would be conducted down into the rest of the Kinhold.  
  
“Pa says waystones work because they show you a line, a trace of magic running towards the Tower. It’s a beacon, he says, and with the waystone, you can catch a ray. But I don’t want just a ray, I want to _see_ it. So I thought… maybe it just needs more power. Pa was going to take it to the enchanter’s and get it refilled. But I have a better idea.”  
  
“Iriel…”  
  
He clenched his fists, tucked the waystone back inside his pocket, and took the measure of the silkvine trellis.  
  
“Iriel, don’t you _dare!_ ”  
  
He began to climb. She was too shocked to stop him. She’d never had to stop him doing anything before.  
  
Iriel reached the top of the trellis, and struggled onto the dome, pulling himself upwards by the carved fretwork along its ribs. He could almost touch the Varla Stone, and the air was full of wild magic, singing in his ears, dancing along every hair on his body. He reached back into his pocket.  
  
Firionwe came to her senses, and fled down the stairs, screaming for her parents.  
  
  
***  
  
“…ply can’t apologise enough, Cinteril. I can’t begin to imagine how they got up there in the first place! I thought they were in Firi’s room, reading about plants!”  
  
Iriel opened his eyes. His mother was there, her green eyes red-rimmed, her lips pressed into the tight, bloodless line he usually only saw on stormy nights when his father was late back from the sea. She choked back a sob as her fingers clamped around his, trembling violently.  
  
A twelve-year-old boy with the same dark hair as Firionwe was watching him from the doorway. Her brother, Valtir. “You’re in my _bed_ ,” he spat, his sharp-angled eyebrows converging downwards in an expression of extreme distaste.  
  
He sat up. His hair was exploding outwards from his head, crackling with golden-blue sparks. “I’m sorry,” he said, as if it would help. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. It’ll never happen again.” He kept repeating it all the way home, his mother’s hand never slackening its iron grip on his wrist.  
  
He didn’t mean any of it. The waystone was ruined, shattered completely, and he’d spend the next month working off what it cost, but it didn’t matter, he didn’t need it any more. The magic was still there, above him, around him, inside him, bearing him up into the Varlines, the rays of the Tower, pulling him closer, day by day. He could see it even with his eyes closed, from any direction, because it wasn’t _in_ any direction, it was… he didn’t have words for it. It had been there all along. He had just needed to know where to look.


End file.
